


He Can't Help

by Dirthenera



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Feels, Cole POV, Crestwood (Dragon Age), Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Solavellan, Solavellan Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 06:24:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18309980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dirthenera/pseuds/Dirthenera
Summary: Cole's POV before and after Crestwood, knowing what Solas planned and seeing him not go through with it.Short fic my brain wouldn't let go of.





	He Can't Help

His helping helps her. It’s not why he does it. Leaving plums and pies and spiderwebs. Every time she finds, she smiles, and she’s happy, even though it’s not for her. Because he’s helping, and she wants him to. She is a friend. Like Varric, laughing, loud with words that aren’t real covering the pain that is, or Solas, so quiet and calm inside, old wounds that don’t heal, woven into him.

She helped him when he needed, just like them. He would help her hurts, pull loose the pearls and shake.

But she doesn’t need his help. Even when she hurts, it’s Solas she goes to, and it makes him glad. It helps him too.

She’s bright, blinding, bound to the moon, and he howls for her. A word on his lips makes her hum, makes her more. It hurts him in the way healing hurts. He knows, knows that she might be his last chance, last chance to heal, last chance to smile and laugh.

He’s steady, deep, old wounds unreachable, but she just might.

He wants to hum too, he stutters, stammers, sad but hoping. He wants to let in her light. It glimmers, gutters, old things that can’t be revealed, needing darkness and secrets that she guesses at. Why won’t he touch me? A question, a nail that snags on things she cannot guess, but a word smooths it, softens it until it’s bright again. Vhenan. She feels it too. A thread of hope, happiness, that makes the other names easier.

She is so small and didn’t know she could carry so many. Herald sits the hardest. Awkward, bumbling thing that pulls and veers her from herself, from her blood that sings ancient songs. Worship, strange and foreign, when knives on nugs sit solidly, disliked but normal. Inquisitor is easier, a title like a job and not a false calling, calling her away from home.

But she is so far from home, from trees that whisper secrets and laughter of children unbound and unburdened. She knows that home is gone, won’t fit all of her names. She is not little now, can’t be confined to be kept. He called her kin, before, and it pulled the thread tight, thrumming between them with everything unsaid.

Boss, Inky, names filled with love she gives freely. They make the others easier, standing on faith and dreams that aren’t hers.

She feels so high she might fall. Will fall, falling from hopes that failed, shape of her ears a knife she’s sure will turn against her. Falling, failing… Looked up to from so many, sure to stumble.

But she sees him and thinks he will catch her. Strong shoulders, strong arms holding her close, letting her be herself. Letting her shed the titles like armor, soft in his embrace. Her blood sings to him, through his heart, seeds sprouting fresh tendrils from ancient soil.

He will, but not the way she wants. It should be the way she wants, would hurt him less too. He wants to say, wants to be true, but he’s fearful, frightened and falling too. Falling into her, into light to illuminate his darkness.

She’s real. Dreaded but true, he won’t turn away.

They leave together, hopeful and happy. He flutters, flailing and feeling young. And so very old. He will say and heal his hurt. He will let her light in. He will take her where the wood crests and show her, cast away his mask and let her see. She will accept him, she will understand, and they can heal.

He turns back to his turnips, humming, happy, listening for all the dark things unsaid.

When they come back, it’s wrong.

He comes first, weary, wondering, what if? But he can’t. It swallows him. He hides, hides from her, from him, from himself. He crawls into shadows and tells himself he belongs. He doesn’t deserve more. Selfish, stupid, secrets that cannot be abandoned and can’t be kept and stay true. He longs to shatter his mask and show her, give her everything. He reinforces it instead.

She takes longer. She’s dull now, confused and hurt. Scrubbed bare and laid out for everyone to see, embarrassed. She can’t wear a mask like him. She wears Inquisitor like a bandage, but it soaks through at Sera’s words. She bleeds, desperate and demanding, and he turns the knife, her heart to harden. She thought he would catch her, but he pulls her down instead. He pulls her heritage free with a twist and drops her.

It hurts it hurts it hurts. He was supposed to tell her and he only made it worse. Something twists and curls inside, glimmer of despair, growing. Tendrils turn to poison and she’s falling, drowning. He can’t help. The pearl is jagged and shaking it will only cut. He can’t help.

He offers answers that will never come, and she clings like driftwood on the black sea. The moon whispers, offering no light. She has become the well, she thinks. She bleeds and he watches, bound by his own chains. He can’t help. He should have let her in. He could have been happy, they could have healed together, bittersweet but true.

_The veil is thin here. Can you feel it on your skin, tingling?_

He was supposed to let her light in, but the darkness has them both. They hurt alone.


End file.
